Loft Conversions in Daventry, priced in writing before anything starts.
Daventry has an unusually clear split between its two kinds of loft, because so much of the town went up in a single burst from the 1960s onward.
That estate housing is almost entirely trussed. A trussed roof has no usable space until the structure is reworked, and reworking it is a proper structural job rather than a matter of boarding out and putting a window in. It is entirely doable and we do it often, but a trussed roof and a cut roof are not the same job and should never carry the same price. Anyone quoting one as the other has not been up there.
In the older core the roofs are cut, which usually makes for a better conversion, but head height needs measuring rather than assuming. A roof can look generous from the hatch and still leave you short of two metres along the walking line once the floor build up and insulation are in.
The permitted development volume allowance is forty cubic metres on a terrace and fifty on a semi or detached house. A dormer facing the road is not permitted development anywhere, and in the town centre conservation area, where the Article 4 direction already controls windows and porches, anything altering the street elevation will be looked at closely. Rear dormers and rooflights are much easier.
Escape, fire separation and stair position are Building Regulations matters. Our loft conversion page goes through the options.
Four things we commit to on every job, rather than four things we say about ourselves.
Permitted development is not an exemption from Building Regulations. We arrange the West Northamptonshire Council inspections, meet the inspector on site at each stage and see the work through to sign off. We do not make the application itself, and we will tell you what is needed and when.
Free, and you get it before you commit to us. Party walls and skip licences are raised at quotation stage, not three weeks into the dig.
The same people do the groundworks, the brickwork and the fit out. Nobody hands your job to a subcontractor you have never met.
You get a straight answer rather than a padded price. It costs us a job occasionally and saves you a great deal more.
Process, specification and what moves the price are set out on our loft conversions page.
The answers that genuinely differ from one Daventry street to the next.
Most loft material goes up through the house. Steels are the exception, and where they will not go up the stairs they come in through the roof with a lift and a part day road closure. On an estate cul-de-sac that is usually simple to arrange; in the town centre it needs more notice, and we price it in rather than springing it on you.
On semis and terraces there is a step that holds jobs up. Where the new floor beams bear on a wall shared with a neighbour, the work is notifiable under the Party Wall Act and notice has to be served properly before anything starts. Most awards go through without argument, but the notice periods are fixed, and this is the most common reason a conversion waits on a start date that did not need to be lost.
Part of our wider building work in Daventry.
Send photographs and a rough brief, or call and talk it through. We will tell you if a job is not right for us.
Southfield Construction (Rugby) Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company 14209138.
